Six Hours Earlier

My gaze slowly slipped away from the mansion's roofline, and with it, the moment of madness evaporated. As selfish as it was...I couldn't...I couldn't take my own life.

I didn't know how late it was, but beyond the leafy garden that surrounded the aviary, I could still hear the strains of music seeping out of the marquee and the distant sound of chatter from guests milling outside the tent.

My mind descended into a swirling mess of panic, trying to grasp the Alverac and what Graysen begged me to do—run. The thought of not being with him had carved a hole inside my chest and my heartbeat rattled inside that empty space.

But...

The Alverac... What his family wanted from me...

All for revenge—to break me, and in doing so, break my father.

And if Graysen failed to protect me from this family... If he failed to protect me from himself... What could he force me to do by asserting his will against mine?

What if I angered him? Bored him? Insulted him? What if it was something as simple as telling me to get to my feet and walk and forget he'd asked me to? What if I left the pavement and stepped over the curb to walk across a busy street—hit by a car, a bus, or a truck? What if the path of my feet took me into a pond? The cold stagnant water lapping my ankles, up to my waist, rising higher to bubble around my mouth. And on I walked, my feet sliding through the sediment, desperate for him to remember me as I went under—the air escaping my burning lungs in a turmoil of panicked spheres.

The Crowthers had wanted me all along because of what my mother and father had done. It didn't matter that I was innocent. That I'd never known what had happened to Tabitha. It wasn't me who had betrayed her.

And yet...I was alive while she was not.

Graysen lay sprawled on the grass between the silvery birches. His powerful body was caught in rare slumber—he only looked younger in sleep, not softer. Thick black eyelashes fanned against the uppermost curve of his cheeks. Shadows darkened his jaw and there was the slightest pinch between his brows.

I jittered on the spot, shaking my wrists. My damaged adamere bracelet softly chinked with the erratic movement and my pulse kicked into a frantic pace.

What was I to do?

I could run...or I could end him.

As I took in his vulnerable repose, I realized with sickening certainty that there was no safety for me, none at all, not until one of us was dead. I could easily put an end to the Alverac right this moment, and he'd never awaken from his sleep.

It was either me or him.

The thought took root and I fell prey to the ease of it all.

Grass cushioned my fall as I sank to my knees about to reach for my dagger. It would be as easy as slicing his throat from ear to ear, watching the blood spill and stain the greenery with crimson.

My hand went instinctively to my thigh...it wasn't there...I hadn't strapped the dagger to my body like I always did.

But then, I realized as I glanced down at my empty palm, I had never really needed a dagger.

The creature stirred within me uneasily. I ignored its hissing, the way it coiled around my wrist bones as if it were trying to stop me from raising my hand. To stop the dark power welling in my palm and the fire dancing upon my trembling fingertips.

Flames as pale as moonlight illuminated Graysen's handsome features. I could burn him alive. Shatter every bone. Rupture every organ in his body. Crush the air in his lungs and watch him suffocate in his sleep.

Don't—the creature hissed.

I could...I should.

It was either him or me.

Do it, do it, do it—

I reached for his vulnerable throat, spreading my fingers wide. The flames burned higher as silent tears trickled down my cheeks.

All it would take would be for me to squeeze that throat of his marked in ink and shove fire down his throat to set myself free.

My hand shook. The pale flames wavered against the night air.

Do it, do it, do it—

I hesitated, watching the pulse point flutter in his throat.

Don't think about it, do it, do it, do it—

But I knew if I took his life, something inside me would shatter so completely, I'd never mend.

I rocked back on my heels with an anguished sob.

I can't! I can't!

Shaking my hand free of dark power, the flames extinguished as my shoulders slumped and my hand fell slack by my side. I couldn't...I couldn't do this. Couldn't take his life, though he could easily take mine once I reached my twentieth birthday.

I swiped at the salty teardrops dripping from my chin.

What am I going to do?

If I couldn't end him, I had to run.

How? Where to?

How can I even find a way to leave the estate?!

The barest bones of a plan began to take shape.

Graysen's car... There were too many guests leaving in vehicles for our guards to check every single one of them. I could take his car, get outside the gates, and swift away.

I frantically dug around in his pockets searching for his car keys and found nothing.

Nothing!

Graysen's lips parted slightly and there was a sudden tension in his body as he slumbered. My gaze honed in on the shiver that shuddered through his body and my mind paused to wonder—what he was dreaming of? I dreamt of the dark, ensnared in pitch-black nightmares. But what would make him shiver that way? What would cause cold sweat to bead above his lip and give his forehead that waxen sheen? What was he dreaming of to make a deep line form between his eyebrows?

There was no time, no time for anything but escape—

I'd find the car keys in his room, perhaps inside the luggage he'd brought with him.

Half-twisting around, I went to push myself to my feet when I heard a low growl.

All the fine hair on my body prickled with warning.

It had sounded like an animal, wounded and dangerous.

Wide-eyed, I slowly swung back to find Graysen's jaw clenched tight, his features exhausted and ravaged in suffering, and he was breathing fast and shallow as if he couldn't untangle himself from the snarls of a nightmare. I knew better than most, there was no way out of the dream world that smothered like ivy. Not unless you jolted awake or were woken by someone else's hand. Evvie had always been there for me, shaking me awake and pulling me from the terror of darkness before my powers tore free.

But who did he have? No one.

There was only me in the aviary.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, not mere days ago that I'd been oblivious to the man enshrouded by secrets who kept me company once a month. I'd found his presence curious and frustrating, the sparking awareness of him intriguing. And now, everything had changed. I'd fallen for him and my body had been branded by his kisses and his touch. And right this moment, he had turned me against myself—my heart conflicted with my mind.

My gaze darted to the open door of the aviary. I need to go, to run—

But then...I couldn't leave him this way.

I leaned over to stroke the tension line between his furrowed brows until it had smoothed away, along with the distress pinching at his features. Brushing the hair from his clammy forehead, I feathered my fingers through the locks and petted him, while my other hand rested across his heart. I murmured sweet nothings until he relaxed in slow increments, his heartbeat slowing to match my own. His fisted hands loosened, and beneath my palm, his chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm of peaceful sleep.

I bowed my head and pressed my lips to his forehead—a goodbye.

I had to do what Graysen urged. I had to run and keep on running until I'd lost myself out there in the world.

But not alone...I had to get Sage.

Scrambling to my feet, I spun around and ran, fleeing from the aviary.

My heels scuffed pebbles as I darted across the path that weaved through the garden bordering the gigantic birdcage, and headed toward the nearest door of my family home. The guard opened it wide at my approach.

As I clattered down hallways and through open spacious rooms, another thought occurred to me. I could take Evvie. We could run away. I'd pack, get Evvie and Sage, take Graysen's car to escape the estate, then swift us all and keep on swifting until no one, not Graysen, nor his family or my own, not even a Horned God would find us.

I was in such a panicked hurry it only occurred to me too late that the door to my quarters was unlocked. I pushed my way in, my hand instinctively reaching for the light switch to flick it on. When no light flooded the room, it came back to me—my earlier wrath—that I'd reduced the chandelier's antique crystals and bulbs to fine grains of dust.

Yet—

There was light in my quarters. Not the light filtering in from the hallway and illuminating the area near the doorway. This light was narrowed and bobbed along the walls. As it glided across the ceiling, in the edge of its frayed yellow glow was the curve of a shoulder, a tumble of hair—

Someone was in there—

And I saw the strangest thing I'd ever encountered.

She stood in the middle of my living room, staring up at the mangled and twisted remains of the chandelier, her pale brows raised in curiosity. She wore a white dress...no, it was a short-sleeved nightie that rode high on her thighs. The torchlight glanced along her face, flattening the sharp cheekbones and blanching the freckles scattered across her nose. Her mouth parted in delight and widened into a crooked grin.

That was me standing beneath the chandelier.

Me.

My mind scrambled to understand what I was looking at...the how of it all...and threads of the past came back with a snagging halt...a dream...two nights back. I'd awoken to the sound of sobbing from the prisoner trapped in the tithe prison...and I'd been dreaming of my own face hovering above my own...but it hadn't been a dream, had it?

She'd been there, staring down at me.

A Changeling.

Holy Skalki!

I'd awoken after the Changeling had morphed into me.

Changelings were used for one thing: to replace the stolen soul and kill themselves so no one knew, no one in the mortal world would suspect there had been an exchange.

Terror and dread chilled the blood in my veins—someone wanted me dead. And just as that realization crashed through me, another stream of torchlight bobbed across the floor, and footfall crunched through broken glass and clouds of cushion stuffing, as a figure hurried around my computer station and stepped right in front of me.

The creature hissed just as I reacted, stumbling back with fright. My spine struck the edge of the bedroom door. A spike of burning pain surged across my back.

Danne Pelan's face, half cast in shadows and artificial light, loomed in front of me.

My mouth parted as I sucked in a breath of air to expel and shout at him to get the hells out of my room when he lifted his hand, palm upward. There was something that was cupped in his palm that glittered dully.

He bowed his head, lips pursed—

And blew dust at my face—

I inhaled it into my lungs, down into my stomach. I could taste the wrongness of the dust. So very, very wrong. It filled my throat and lungs and I started choking. Jackknifing forward, I clapped a hand at my stomach while winding the other around my throat, as pure panic overwhelmed every sense. I couldn't take in air. All I breathed in was that clogging dust.

All kinds of things happened, fast.

Every single inch of my body spasmed and convulsed.

The thing inside me recoiled instantly. It reared back like a startled cat. I had absolutely no control as my magic vibrated in horror and rage and withdrew into the pit of my stomach coiling around itself in a tight ball, shielding itself from the dust I'd inhaled that now soaked my bloodstream.

I tried to strike out at Danne.

I tried to will my dark power, but it wouldn't rise, it wouldn't obey. Both of us were trapped by whatever vile magic infused the dust.

Too late, too late I realized what Danne had done.

Move, move, move!—my mind screamed at me. My limbs flailed as I tried to move, to shift, to run away from Danne. My high heels skidded amongst the shredded paper and broken wooden furniture, and my footing slipped out from under me. I fell backward. My head was about to crack against the gouged wall—when masculine hands gripped my elbows and righted my balance.

I suddenly realized there weren't hazel eyes peering into mine any longer, but the brightest blue I'd ever seen. And the voice speaking wasn't Danne's either. The stranger's full lips parted. "I'm sorry...I didn't want to frighten you this way."

His eyebrows were a darker shade than my own and they slashed forward over eyes filled with concern and remorse. His features were striking. The cut of his cheekbones created a hollow in his cheeks and their severity was softened by full lips. He looked familiar—pale blond hair that slithered across his forehead as he angled his face to the side to stare back at me.

Holy Skalki, I can't move...I can't move!

A heaviness pulled at me. I felt like I'd been turned to lead and my feet buried beneath the earth. I couldn't move my arms or legs, could only shake and shudder and try to gulp down mouthfuls of oxygen. My lungs were on fire, desperate for air.

It slammed into me where I'd seen the stranger before. Yesterday I'd seen him shifting furniture from a shipping container, and later that night he was in the marquee, a nail gun dangling between his fingers while he watched Danne spin me around the dance floor.

This time he was wearing a black tuxedo as if he belonged to one of the Houses. As if he belonged here amongst us. But I knew he didn't.

Gravity tugged at me and I pitched sideways, tipping over. The stranger leaned with me, his movement graceful and fluid as if both of us had danced this way for an eternity. He slid one arm around my back and the other behind my knees, drawing us down together. He knelt on the floor, cradling me in his arms, and in a mockery of an intimate moment, settled me in his lap as if we were lovers, murmuring gentle, soothing sounds as I'd just done for Graysen. His warm hand tenderly brushed the strands of hair away from where it had fallen across my eyes. There was a slight accent in his voice that I detected and yet couldn't place. "You're going to sleep for a while now...and when you awake, everything will be as it should."

I struggled for breath. My chest heaved and my body twitched in his arms. I was drowning beneath the surface of a waterless ocean. My legs sluggishly kicked for the surface, scrabbling through shards of glass and splintered wood and porcelain dust.

Darkness blotted the edges of my blurred vision.

I was dying. Slowly, surely, I was going to suffocate!

The stranger gazed down at me and smiled. It was breathtaking, that smile, and lit his curiously blue eyes with reverent awe as if he couldn't believe it himself—that he was finally smiling at me, holding me. He bowed his head, his mouth an inch from mine, and then he closed the gap.

His lips were soft and gentle when he covered my mouth with his own. I thought he was going to kiss me, and I waited for him to push his tongue in, invade my mouth and steal the last of my life. Kiss me while I died in his arms. Instead, he blew in a breath of air. My throat greedily swallowed it down. His breath was infused with magic and I could feel it sparking through the oxygen he'd given me, soothing the lick of flames burning my throat. The crushing pressure in my lungs eased and the organ swelled again.

His mouth still fused with mine, I sucked in a sharp breath, stealing the air from him.

He abruptly jerked back staring down at me with shock.

But I could breathe.

I could breathe!

The softness in his gaze sharpened to an angry storm and his fingers tightened around my shoulder.

However, whatever was in that dust was dragging me under.

My eyelids were too heavy to keep open. I tried...I tried hard to keep a sliver of sight. But my vision narrowed until all I saw were blue eyes. The startling bright blue of a kingfisher...and then nothing as my eyelids fluttered shut. But for the moment I could still hear.

"His scent is all over her...I can't...I can't be near her..." His voice was strained with bitterness and panic. "She's tasted his blood... If she should mate with him... Mark him, claim him...he'll corrupt her..."

I was passed to someone else. Someone I'd once thought nice, comfortable, and safe.

The man with the kingfisher-blue eyes said, "Take her to the Ayrion. I'll meet you there soon afterward."

"And my debt?" asked the man who'd betrayed me as his hands curled around my body possessively.

"Will be at an end."

And then I fell, fell, fell into darkness.